Going No Contact with a Narc Parent

[sarkatharess]

this is my first post, and my CPTSD critic is filling my mind with self doubt and criticism as i try to write. Aggh!

its been 4 months since i've gone No Contact with my Malignant, overt Narc Father. {Retired military (think Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive..."Hen house, out house, dog house..." Thats my dad, except add in all the rollercoaster abuse you suffer from Narcs. i am a sensitive person,  an artist. i am the only one of my siblings who moved back to our home town, so i suffer the Scapegoat and the Golden child roller coaster alone. } i have been love bombed, and attacked, and love bombed, and attacked, via phone calls for the past few months. the flying monkeys are circling, but i am grateful i have my 3 older siblings on my side.  (we banded together several years ago, after years of hating each other bc he used to pit us against each other to vie for his "love" and attention. )

i am almost 40 and i have finally gained boundaries and some beginning of a sense of self. it's been 7 months since i started this journey towards freedom and joy. Reparenting helps, and i'm working hard to focus on my mental journey through this muck.

i am a better mother to my 2 children since i started this path.  i flashback less, i am mindful, and i am grieving through the years of abuse i suffered and am allowing myself to feel anger and pain.

if you have advice on the journey of going no contact with a parent, please share. 

[Blueberry]

Just want to give you a warm welcome to the forum! 

I'm VLC with parents not NC.

It's late in my corner of the world, I can't post about complicated things anymore tonight.

[Three Roses]

I'm sorry to hear how your F treats you and your siblings. (And by the way, welcome!) I don't have any advice for going NC (my parents are deceased) but I wanted you to know your post had been read. Thanks for posting!

[sanmagic7]

welcome - very glad you're here, and thanks for posting.

my parents are also dead, but i've gone nc with my oldest daughter, a little over 3 yrs. now.  shredded my heart, but time has helped.  i'm glad you and your sibs have banded together - that kind of support can be truly helpful.

one thing that's helped me with my daughter was blocking her from my emails and phone.  her sister has done the same.  getting those messages from narcs can be tremendously stressful, triggering, and emotionally draining. 

best to you with this, and i hope you find a solution to help you. 

[Libby183]

Welcome to OOTS, Sarkatharas.

I am very sorry to read about what you have been through with your father.  I relate to much of what you wrote,  in my case it was a controlling, cruel mother and weak, enabling father. 

I went NC five or six years ago.  I was in my forties and it was the first time I had ever stated how I felt about nm. It was actually more that they rejected me and my family,  and I have not really heard from them again. I'm sorry to hear about the love bombing and FM 's - I never experienced that,  so can't really offer advice.

What I can say, however,  is that I believe you are doing the right thing,  because you say that you are a better parent to your children.

This was the key for me, too. My mind was so full of dealing with my mother and all of her mind games etc, that I didn't have much left over for my children.  Although NC was very difficult at first,  I realise now that my relationship with my three children,  but especially my daughter began to improve.  Things had never been bad, but just got so much better.   My children do not miss their grandparents at all - they were fine with them when they were very young,  but as with me, didn't accept them as people in their own right. 

NC is hard but it sounds as if you know it is right for you and your family at this time . It sounds as if you have started the healing process already.

I found that learning everything I could about cptsd, NPD,  NC and so on really helped on this long but worthwhile healing journey.

Wishing you every strength in dealing with all of this.

Libby

[Blueberry]

I don't know that I have any advice. Today on a different thread, I wrote a bit about it. Here: http://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=9124.msg65250#msg65250

I agree with Libby that you being a better parent to your children is a very big sign of you doing the right thing. cuz that's more important than being a dutiful grownup child to parents.

Since going VLC with everybody, I've had more energy for my own healing. I concentrate more on where I need to go with my healing and not where FOO would like me to go. They would like me to get 'better' and function better too of course without any of them or the dysfunctional family system itself changing at all. One of my goals used to be having a normal relationship with them again. It's only been since a Horrendous Family Event and then finding this forum and OutOfTheFog about a year ago that I've discovered that I'm not the only one who had had to severely limit contact to FOO in order to even start properly healing. I know now that a normal relationship with my FOO will never be, and it's not to do with my lack of trying.

I'm in my late 40's and I'm very far away geographically. That distance helped but wasn't enough. Whether VLC or NC, it's a personal choice. For me VLC is correct while I work some things out, but for others NC is right from the get-go.